Thank you, Ricky, for another skillfully executed, well-researched assessment, unnerving though it be. Lately, as I watch with dread the sudden collapse of my own country (USA) into a kleptocratic fascist oligarchy with a deranged, vindictive, power-crazed psychopath at the helm, I have become inured to doom, whether sociopolitical or ecological. It's all happening at once.

Call it apocalypse or extinction, it is, unfortunately, the fate of all complex systems in dynamic homeostasis. They eventually unravel and collapse, and that is where we are now, both socioeconomically, politically, and above all, ecologically. The next global mass extinction event is upon us, and our own survival as a species is doubtful. We'll see what happens next, if there are any of us left to see it!